As in, “get back where you belong!” If you were ever in military service, especially many years ago, you had the delightful Sgt. Hartman experience. But, you can’t shake the dude since he’s now doing business as Mr. Market and he’s as mean as ever, just ask Merrill Lynch! Volume was lighter than average but let’s remember it’s a Monday in the middle of summer. [Pssst! I think Yahoo/Finance actually has the numbers right today. Perhaps our undercover agents have finally helped them see the light!] Meanwhile we’ll revisit the ICU and see how ...

Last week was another down week for the Nikkei, albeit very limited, but the Friday close of 13,942 was over 3.5% off the weekly high and the second consecutive week of a sub-14,000 finish. So, while the Nikkei had been showing signs of promise and not simply selling-off on every piece of bad news, a move beyond 14,500 has proven elusive. The N225 is up over 19% from its year-to-date and multi-year low of 11,691, but there are just not enough positive catalysts to push stocks higher, at present, in the face of all the bad news that continues to hit the wires day in and day out. And this month, we have hedge fund redemptions that could be putting further downward pressure on equities. Nikkei 225 futures in Chicago tanked 500 points to 13,765 on Friday, compared to a ...

The world market capitalization is ever changing as share and market values fluctuate, and the US share is shrinking.

The US market share has been declining steadily in recent years, while other markets have been increasing. Today, the US market (proxy SPY) has declined to less than 41% from nearly 53% as recently as of 2004, according to the S&P “World by the Numbers” report. In earlier times, the US share was much higher than 53%.

Emerging markets (proxies VWO and EEM) have been gaining market share notably through the BRIC countries of Brazil (proxy EWZ), Russia (proxy RSX), India (proxy INP), and China (proxy FXI).

Germany (proxy EWG) and Japan (proxy EWJ) have held their own and actually increased their market share since 2004.

This table presents the annual market shares for the US, Japan, Germany, China, India, Brazil and Russia as of …

The Nikkei had a rough go last week indeed, losing 3.6% and the 14,000-level (13,973.73); TOPIX fell to 1,371.57 after a short-lived recovery of 1,400 two weeks ago. No worries though, as Chicago Nikkei 225 futures not only held 14k, but added 140 points to the upside (14,220) setting the stage for a gap up on Monday (Osaka N225 futures: 13,980). The Bank of Japan held its benchmark rate at 0.5%, as expected; meanwhile, the yen has eased to its weakest level against the dollar, ¥108/$1, since late February. Inflation and U.S. i-bank earnings will weigh heavy on sentiment this week. Lehman (LEH: 25.81 +13.70%) leads off on Monday, 6/16, Goldman (GS: 178.29 +6.92%) is up on Tuesday, 6/17 and Morgan (MS: 41.04 +6.93%) reports on Wednesday, 6/18. Circuit City (...

Recently I posted how international ETF stand in relation P/E to GDP (link to post). The most undervalued seemed to be emerging markets of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China).World markets had turned to negative on October and have started bear market which lasts already 6 months. But major fall happened at the beginning of year 2008. I run my screen for ETF to see the leaders and laggards on YTD basis. Her you have result. ...

There are 67 countries between the United States, Canada, EAFE, emerging market and frontier market countries. It may be helpful to you if you visualize the geographic relationship between those countries when you think about making country, region or development stage country investments.

The pie chart shows the relative market cap size of the US, Canada, the 21 EAFE (Europe, Australasia, Far East) countries, and the 25 emerging market countries. The stock market capitalization of the 19 frontier market countries is essentially negligible in comparison to the other market categories.

The map color codes the location of Canada, EAFE countries, and the emerging and frontier market countries. The US in not color coded.

It is interesting to note that the square area of the emerging markets is quite …